ESL Lessons

I am happy to present this post by Lorraine Segal, excerpts from her memoir, Angels and Earthworms.

After surviving the ’50s and ’60s, as well as twenty years in toxic academia as a professor, Lorraine Segal was inspired to start her own business, Conflict Remedy, happily teaching, coaching, blogging, and consulting around workplace conflict transformation. She is addicted to reading novels and enjoys walking in beautiful Northern California, where she lives with her wife. Her cartoon muse, Bookie, insisted that she write her memoir, Angels and Earthworms. For more information go to https://BooklingPress.com

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ESL Lessons

The Novice (teacher)

            I had the opportunity, after a couple of semesters of instruction under my belt, to get actual teaching experience at the American Language Institute (ALI), an intensive language program for foreign students improving their English skills for later university studies. The ALI hired graduate students in the TESOL (Teaching English as a Second Language) Master’s program.

            I will always remember my first five minutes of teaching in front of a real class. The teacher asked me to prepare a short lesson on adjective clauses. It took me hours to study adjective clauses and prepare a short script (which I wrote out word for word) with an explanation, examples to write on the board, and a short exercise. I had only been up at the board for five seconds when a student asked a question I couldn’t answer. I had no idea what to do. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me.

            All these years later, I know that if someone asks a question I can’t answer, I just calmly say “Hmm. Good question. I’ll have to check on that and get back to you.” But at the time, I thought my teaching career had ended before it started.

            Teaching at the American Language Institute, I also learned about the art of writing on the blackboard. You weren’t supposed to fully turn your back on the class, so there was a precise and twisted angle to your body, so you could keep an eye on the class AND write on the board AND keep talking at the same time.

 

Chalk Triumphant

            I was also fascinated with chalk and how to use it correctly on the blackboard. This was before white boards or smart boards. I remember an adjective clause exercise I created that was all about chalk, and ended with one of my characters creating a sculpture called “Chalk Triumphant.”

            This obsession was reinforced by my mentor teacher when he observed me teach. He was taking notes the entire time he was observing me, and I couldn’t imagine what he was writing at such great length. At the end of the class, he gave me his notes and he hadn’t written anything! Instead, he had made a detailed drawing, complete with arrows and arcs, of the correct angle at which to hold the chalk so it wouldn’t squeak!

 

Overworked and Underloved

The worst part of being an adjunct (freeway flyer) was the uncertainty, overwork, and constant commuting. It was like running a marathon all the time. I never knew which classes I would actually teach because the college administrations could cancel them without notice and not pay me anything if they didn’t enroll enough students. I was always taking on more work than I could really manage, hoping that the right number of classes would come through. And I still had to prepare for all the classes even if they were later cancelled.

For example, one semester I was working six days a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I taught at Laney College in Oakland in the morning, and then went to City College in San Francisco in the afternoon, about an hour and a quarter commute, and then back to Laney at night. Other days, I went to City College and then Contra Costa College, which was in San Pablo, forty minutes north of Oakland.

I never had Spring Break because different schools had their vacation in different weeks. And I couldn’t afford to take summers off.

One semester, I took on a Saturday class at City College because if another class had canceled, I wouldn’t earn enough to live on. It was a brutal schedule. If I thought about how long it would be until my next day off, I couldn’t function. I became very ill at one point from overwork and stress. And I spent as much time commuting as I did teaching.

During the seven years I was an adjunct, I taught at seven different schools, including City College of San Francisco, Golden Gate University, Laney College in Oakland, Contra Costa College in San Pablo, St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Adelante Adult School in Berkeley, and Albany Adult School, in Albany just north of Berkeley. I loved teaching, but being an adjunct was an exhausting way to earn a living.

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